Qualcomm Set to Develop Server ARM-Based System-on-Chips.

Qualcomm, which has developed ARM-based and ARM instruction set-compatible applications processors and system-on-chips for communication and multimedia industries for ages, will also design server-grade ARM solutions, it was revealed on Friday. The company will join numerous competitors, who are also developing chips for the emerging market of micro-servers.

At present, Qualcomm is searching for engineers who will work on "architecture/design and system prototypes of Qualcomm's new ARMv8-based server SoC ASICs for the power optimized server market”, reveals a job advertising that has been found by EETimes web-site. Primary responsibilities of the applicants will “include specification, development, porting, integration and shakeout of server platform management software and firmware on prototypes utilizing Qualcomm’s new SoC”.

ARMv8 is ARM’s 64-bit architecture with special tweaks made for server-class hardware, including ECC, extended reliability and scalability features for high-performance enterprise applications. The family of ARMv8-compatible cores includes Cortex-A53 designed for low-power use cases and Cortex-A57 designed for performance-hungry applications.

Qualcomm is at least the eighth company now known to be working on ARM server SoCs. Others with announced or known plans include AMD, Applied Micro, Cavium, Calxeda, Marvell, Nvidia and Samsung. It is expected that the first generation of 64-bit chips with ARMv8 architecture for servers will emerge in 2014.